LUCKY SCRIBE that I am, I recently found myself in attendance when King Thomas the Eternal came to our poor printery to discuss the happy state of the realm in the 16th year of his rule.
Sadly, my report is not as complete as it might otherwise be, for though we had hoped for a morsel about what our municipal monarch intends to do if the crown is again pressed upon his beneficent brow, the very first thing the King said when asked how the next few years might differ from times past was this: “Can I go off the record on this one?’’
Silly me, I’ve always thought the purpose of a campaign was for a sovereign to paint for his people his vision of the years ahead. But when I advanced that view, the royal visage clouded in perturbation, as though the very act of sitting at table with one as impertinent as I pained him.
This, you see, is not the way things are done in the Kingdom of Menino. Here, the sovereign decides at his own stately pace what shall happen and only then informs his subjects.
Certainly I can understand why his highness desires that his ruminations be off the record, for such is the King’s, um, rhetorical style that the answer to even the simplest of queries can quickly become an odyssey across the uncharted regions of the royal mind, one made without benefit of compass, map, or sextant, and with only scant clues as to what notion guides the journey. (Thus it was that an apparent summation of the royal presentation soon found King Thomas seemingly trying to recall the name of every small college in the realm.) Verily, making sense of it all can leave a poor scrivener bewildered, the more so since the King’s English is a dialect unto itself.
Yet I had dreamt of a few pronouncements about what’s to come, and so pressed the King for such.
I soon came to understand the audacity of my expectations.
“I can’t give you concrete things,’’ answered he. “I’m just thinking about some of the things we can do.’’
So who knows what the future holds? Beyond the establishment of a manure depository next to Baron Flaherty’s estate, that is.
I did, however, have a chance to petition our sovereign on the delicate issue of the royal temper.
In recent days, after all, we have seen a missive from one of King Thomas’s own ministers expressing dismay that a loyal stalwart had found herself on the receiving end of a royal tantrum. And as every wretched scribe who covers the castle knows, even usually stout-hearted subjects grow mute at the mere thought of the King’s wrath.
Such episodes of pique, our King has previously philosophized, are simply the way overburdened sovereigns everywhere vent on occasion.
Still, in his next few years on the throne, might we dare hope that he will rein in the royal rage?
Alas, the very notion that his ruling style could leave something to be desired seemed to vex the King.
“It has been very successful for 16 years,’’ said he, giving me to understand that most of his subjects enjoy being ruled by a sovereign whose ears regularly steam like manhole covers in winter.
But what of the courtiers who quail at the thought of upsetting the King? And of his penchant for seeing his subjects as either with him or against him - and for freezing out those he suspects of insufficient fealty?
“I don’t hold grudges. Wish I did,’’ the King replied.
This seemed to me an excellent jest, for everyone knows King Thomas combines the skin of a grape with the memory of an elephant. Fortunately, just as my mirth was about to bubble forth, I realized our sovereign was serious, for he continued: “Sometimes you do get angry at people, but that’s just natural.’’
So there would be no change in the royal style?
“My style is me,’’ he decreed. “What you see is what you get.’’
God save the kingdom.
Scot Lehigh can be reached at lehigh@globe.com 
